"I've always liked Crossing Guards," said Traci, "I love how friendly they are, the way they always wave to everyone that goes by."
Sure enough - there was the old, white-haired, orange-vested man standing on the corner with one white-gloved hand raised in salutation to us as we entered the intersection. His face wasfrozen in a wide, senile, squinty smile as he tried to peer through our windshield, which surely reflected the harsh glare of the bright, heatless December sun. He seemed a little ridiculous, standing there in the cold.
I wondered idly whether his friendliness had been a prerequisite for the position, or if he had adopted it as a means of passing the time as he manned his lonely post. In it, I detected a hint of generosity, a feeling of goodwill towards others. If nothing else went well in your day, at least there was that odd old man on the corner who would not judge you too harshly as you passed by. Was his good nature inborn or learned? Were his efforts conscious or so habitual that there was almost no thought attached to them at all?
We drove on, leaving the crossing guard holding his short stop-sign baton and waiting to greet the next passers-by, and I remembered a day a few months previous when I had ridden the bus home. The bus had dropped me a few blocks from our apartment and my walking route took me to the very same corner where the elderly crossing guard worked. As I approached the corner, I wondered what he would do as I, a grown, independent man, crossed the road. I was a little surprised when he ambled authoritatively into the crosswalk from the opposite side of the street, half-hoisting his sign in spite of the near emptiness of the roads. Though I felt a little silly as a graduate student whose elementary school years were far behind him and who had traversed many crossings in much worse traffic conditions in cities far busier than this, I also felt a long-forgotten warmth as the kindly stranger offered his services even to me - one who thought that surely, I was above such assistance. I thanked him in passing, wished him a good evening, and walked the rest of the block home, and forgot all about him.
